From Immediate Grits to Polymers: Scientist Kat Knauer Is Laser Centered on Plastics Air pollution

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Polymer Scientist Applies Scientific Methodology To Resolve Biggest Environmental Challenges Whereas Making Lives Higher

Kat Knauer loved science lessons as a younger lady however her understanding that science may very well be used as an instrument for good was solidified when a beloved member of the family grew unwell.

Her childhood canine, Penny, was having a extreme response to the pesticides her mom utilized to fireside ant mounds dotting the panorama round their south Florida house. Knauer grew to become involved for Penny’s well being and turned to the scientific methodology for potential options.

For her science truthful mission that yr, she selected to display screen and take a look at environmentally pleasant strategies for fireplace ant extermination. The best methodology for dispatching fireplace ants to the afterlife? That ubiquitous southern staple, prompt grits. She found, amongst different issues, that the tiny ant our bodies couldn’t deal with the excessive sodium content material or fast growth of powdered prompt grits.

She ended up successful the science truthful. Then she received the state science truthful. Knauer grew stunned after which intrigued that her buddies, household, academics, and group had been excited in regards to the science outcomes.

The affect surrounding her experiment supplied the younger Knauer with an impression that science may clear up our hardest environmental issues whereas making folks’s (and pets’) lives higher.

Immediately, Knauer remains to be pushed to unveil scientific options to unravel challenges for not solely her family members but additionally the entire world itself. As a polymer scientist and the chief know-how officer of the NREL-led Bio-Optimized Applied sciences to maintain Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Surroundings (BOTTLE™) consortium, Knauer is liable for serving to clear up one of many world’s biggest challenges—plastic air pollution.

BOTTLE is a multiorganization consortium supported by the U.S. Division of Power’s Bioenergy Applied sciences Workplace and Superior Supplies and Manufacturing Applied sciences Workplace. The consortium is targeted on creating new chemical upcycling methods for as we speak’s plastics and redesigning tomorrow’s plastics to be recyclable by design.

Within the interview beneath (edited for size and readability), Knauer mentioned the evolution of her profession and the way NREL, the BOTTLE group, and its dedicated companions are enthusiastic about discovering science-based options to our plastics waste drawback.

Inform me what led you to be a polymer scientist centered on our plastics drawback?

My success on the science truthful was definitely an affect, and as I grew older it grew to become clear that I actually loved math and chemistry. When it got here time for college, I selected chemical engineering as a result of it appeared like this good mixture of calculus and chemistry.

I used to be at all times enthusiastic about environmentalism. Whereas at Florida State College I used to be lucky to do polymer analysis at a brand new campus institute centered on supplies science. There I realized that polymers had been the first elements of plastics.

I additionally got here to appreciate that we had this large plastic waste drawback polluting the planet, and polymers had been the foundation explanation for it. But polymers and polymer chemistry have made the world a greater place and have improved the standard of life for many of society in some ways. However polymers aren’t unhealthy. It’s simply that we’ve abused them.

We have now obligations as scientists to discover a resolution for plastic waste mitigation, and I felt like if I acquired a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry, folks would take heed to me and assume I used to be an skilled, all of which might assist me make a much bigger affect on our plastics drawback.

After your Ph.D. you labored for the personal sector. How did these experiences affect your profession?

My ideas had been that if I labored for a big plastics and polymer science company, I may begin making an affect straight away by serving to commercialize plastic waste mitigation applied sciences sooner than staying in academia. I began engaged on recycling applied sciences and realized how recycling can grow to be commercially and economically viable. Nonetheless, I found rapidly that giant companies could be gradual and danger opposed with limitations to innovation. I wanted to maneuver sooner.

I made the leap to a startup firm, known as Novoloop, run by this superb group of ladies and helped develop a chemical recycling pathway for hard-to-recycle movie waste, like grocery baggage and pallet shrink wrap. The pathway we developed oxidized that movie waste all the way down to worthwhile constructing blocks to make new polymer supplies. And this polymer—a thermoplastic polyurethane or TPU—that I labored on for a few years has reached business viability as the only real of a working shoe.

That’s good to see all that onerous work flip right into a sustainable, business product.

Sure, the good half is that we had been taking one thing that’s thought of single use and so low worth like a grocery bag and making it into a fabric that’s now going into $200 trainers. That is upcycling at its most interesting.

So, your transition from the personal to public sector was finalized by incomes the chief know-how officer (CTO) position for BOTTLE, which has a pleasant ring to it.

Sure, undoubtedly.

What made NREL and BOTTLE seem to be a superb match?

I liked my time at Novoloop. It’s the place I actually grew to become a greater chemist. I additionally skilled the pivotal means of commercialization by taking an concept from bench scale to an actual product. But, after experiencing the manufacturing of recycled TPU for a working shoe, I spotted I needed to work on a large number of applied sciences and make a much bigger dent in as some ways potential. I needed to analysis your entire plastics waste stream and provide chain.

Whereas at Novoloop, I attended the Nationwide Academies’ Chemical Sciences Roundtable the place they invited scientists to speak in regards to the plastic waste drawback. Gregg Beckham, senior analysis fellow at NREL, spoke on the roundtable and laid out his imaginative and prescient for a brand new plastics upcycling consortium, what would grow to be BOTTLE. I used to be excited in regards to the potential. This was what I needed to do.

Gregg and I spoke, and he inspired me to do a seminar at NREL. I did, and once I was right here, I knew that is the place I needed to be. The folks right here, the caliber of labor that was happening, and Gregg’s imaginative and prescient for BOTTLE had been aligned with my mission and targets as a scientist.

Over the following two years, BOTTLE grew to become actual. That’s when Gregg reached again out to me, and we began speaking about how I may grow to be concerned. Our conversations advanced into the CTO position.

It looks like every little thing aligned properly between your self and NREL. What are your core obligations as BOTTLE CTO?

This can be a distinctive position in that it’s a hybrid—I’m half enterprise growth (BD) and half researcher. I handle strategic exterior partnerships by creating, defining, and main particular analysis initiatives with these companion corporations. For the BD half, I present U.S. and world corporations how BOTTLE applied sciences can meet their sustainability or plastics circularity wants. I additionally outline with them what a mission at NREL would appear like and the outputs we may realistically ship to them.

For the researcher half, as soon as we have now a mission settlement, I then pull a group collectively and begin executing and dealing on that know-how for the consumer.

My analysis falls in larger know-how readiness stage (TRL) ranges. Every thing I do with BOTTLE seems to be at DOE-funded applied sciences with a TRL of perhaps 3. I take these to strategic companions and say, with this a lot cash we may get you as much as TRL 6, pre-pilot stage, and we may also help you deploy and commercialize.

We have now a various portfolio of business partnerships, all several types of initiatives with some hitting the deployment part. We’re additionally spinning off startup corporations. We’re extremely centered on making these plastic applied sciences part of the U.S. financial system as rapidly as potential.

Talking of these partnerships, I’ve heard that you just’re a tremendous recruiter of BOTTLE business companions. Are you able to share with us any secret sauce in your success?

It’s not one thing scientists at all times love to listen to, however you do must be personable to get these corporations to wish to speak to you. As well as, I’ve the backing of NREL and all the nice applied sciences and popularity that comes with this group. However I additionally assume a giant a part of that is that I’m brutally clear and trustworthy with these corporations. I’m very real looking with them and upfront with what’s potential. I additionally discuss prices straight away in order that they’re not shocked and stunned later. I believe corporations recognize this transparency.

Additionally, the mannequin we’ve adopted in BOTTLE, which I alluded to earlier than, is that after executing that settlement, I don’t disappear. I stay their level individual. I lead the mission and I mentor the researchers and the postdocs, and I write the papers and I make the displays. I believe a constant line of communication with the person who constructed up this belief with them is one thing they’ve actually come to worth. And I actually recognize it.

BOTTLE has been up and working for a bit. What are some large challenges you’ve overcome?

At BOTTLE we have now two challenges occurring in tandem. One is recycle as we speak’s waste as effectively as potential with the best financial profit and the bottom environmental footprint. The opposite is rethink waste as a result of the plastics used as we speak had been by no means designed to disintegrate. That is redesigning and making new supplies for the long run which are extra inherently recyclable by design, biocompatible, biobased, and probably biodegradable.

At first, we pitched corporations on how they may redesign their materials and packaging in a sustainable approach. The businesses weren’t receptive. They had been desirous about simply recycling their plastic trash as we speak. I do assume that the true resolution is popping it off on the faucet by redesign fairly than simply maintain making as a lot as we’re doing now the identical precise approach and hoping a market evolves to recycle it.

So how did you persuade these corporations to work on redesigning their plastics?

After we found that we may redesign these merchandise at price or barely above, that’s when it shifted, and extra corporations began listening. Our first large win we had was with The North Face, who’s funding a mission to switch the present polyester fiber used of their attire gear with a biobased polyester that shall be simply as strong however has a biodegradation pathway.

And that’s not as a result of we wish clothes to biodegrade. Round 46% of microplastics within the setting come from plastic fibers which are shed throughout garments washing. As an alternative of determining cease all shedding as a result of folks aren’t going to cease washing their garments, we pitched the corporate on redesigning their materials to be pure, biocompatible, and never persist within the setting for 400 years.

OK, one final query. If you happen to had been queen for a day and had limitless energy to make one change on this planet, what would it not be?

There are these little plastic packages that maintain a small serving of mustard or ketchup for instance. These sachet packets are probably the most over engineered supplies on this planet with one thing like eight completely different layers of fully several types of polymers or metals and are unrecyclable. In locations like Indonesia and the Philippines these little sachets make up practically 50% of their waste streams. So, I might make a recycling financial system infrastructure for these sachet packets based mostly on materials that’s recyclable and extremely desired.

Study extra about NREL’s bioenergy analysis and BOTTLE options to mitigate plastic waste air pollution.

Courtesy of NREL. By Justin Rickard